Muslims back 'shoot to kill' despite an innocent man's death

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Khalid Mahmood: 'The death of an innocent man is a terrible tragedy'

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By David Harrison and Chris Johnston

12:01AM BST 24 Jul 2005

Leading British Muslims last night backed the police's "shoot-to-kill" policy to tackle the threat of suicide bombers, despite a police admission that the man shot dead at Stockwell Tube station on Friday was not a terrorist.

Politicians and civil liberties activists called for a review of the policy but said that it was justified when officers concluded that a suspect posed a genuine threat.

The tactic was used against a suspected suicide attacker for the first time on Friday when a police officer shot dead a man on an Underground train at Stockwell, south London, firing five bullets into his head.

Under Operation Kratos, a senior officer is on standby 24 hours a day to authorise the deployment of armed squads to track and, where necessary, shoot suspected suicide bombers.

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Last night, as the Metropolitan Police admitted that the Stockwell man had proved to have no links to the terror investigation, Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, told The Sunday Telegraph that he still supported the new tactics.

"The death of an innocent man is a terrible tragedy and we have to feel sympathy for him and his family and also the police," he said.

"But the basic principles remain the same. As long as the police have robust procedures in place then, if a suspect ignores a command to stop and is deemed to be jeopardising the lives of other people, shooting to kill is justified. Anyone who ignores a police challenge will nearly always have something to hide and will know that he is putting his own life at risk by running away.

"The civil liberties of those whose lives are threatened have to take priority over the rights of someone assessed in good faith by highly trained police officers to be a suicide bomber."

Shami Chakrabarti, a human rights lawyer and director of Liberty, the civil rights group, said: "Our hearts go out to the family of the dead man and to the officers involved in this incident.

"No one should rush to judgment. In any case of this kind - especially at a time of heightened tension - there must be a prompt, comprehensive and independent investigation into what happened and it must cover the guidelines and the training of officers."

But she said that the shoot-to-kill policy was acceptable in exceptional situations. "If the action is carried out by properly trained officers and the authority is given, based on a proper assessment of the risk that innocent people could die, then in those circumstances it could be justified," Ms Chakrabarti said.

"These are knife-edge, split-second decisions made in moments of grave danger. We have a massive shared interest in the protection of innocent lives. Our police are not trigger-happy and it could be a reasoned and proper decision to kill somebody in certain circumstances."

Some Muslim leaders, however, expressed concern about shoot-to-kill. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "We accept that the police are under tremendous pressure, but it's vital that the utmost care is taken to ensure that innocent people are not killed due to over-zealousness."

Abdulhaq Addae, a spokesman for Brixton mosque, said that he was "disturbed" by the policy but would support it if the police had "clear evidence" that a suspect was a suicide bomber.

"There is a case for shoot-to-kill if it will stop nutcases blowing up innocent people, but the police have got to have more concrete evidence that the suspect is a suicide bomber before they start firing bullets into someone's head," he said.

Other local people expressed similar unease. Mousa Sharifa, who owns a café in Brixton market, said: "Not everyone who runs away from the police is a terrorist. Some people might be scared of being questioned because they do not speak English or have overstayed their visas.

"This is not the first time that police have shot someone by mistake - it happened in Hackney not so long ago. But if the police have good reason to suspect that someone has a bomb or is a genuine threat then of course police have to defend themselves."

The Metropolitan Police will not discuss Operation Kratos officially but it is understood that the tactics have been in place for about a year based on guidance from Israeli and Sri Lankan officers on how to combat suicide bombers or "deadly and determined attackers" as they are called officially.

The Met's anti-terrorist branch, SO13, implemented the response to dealing with suicide bombers, based on advice from the Association of Chief Police Officers, after the July 7 attacks.

Senior police officers said that tactics had changed because of the "unique problems" posed by suicide bombers - attackers who are prepared, and usually want, to die with their victims.

The guidance states that in extreme circumstances an armed officer can shoot a suspect in the head if the intelligence suggests that he is a suicide bomber who poses an imminent danger to the public or police. This is to avoid setting off any explosives that might be attached to his body. Five shots are deemed necessary to render a terrorist incapable of detonating his bomb.

The officer can open fire only if authorised to do so by a chief police officer - either at the start of a pre-planned operation, as seems to have been the case at Stockwell, or by police radio during a "spontaneous" incident.

The suspect shot dead had been under surveillance and officers from the Metropolitan Police's firearms squad are understood to have been briefed that he posed a grave risk to safety. The Association of Chief Police Officers has a rule book, the Manual on Police Use of Firearms, which says that police may use force only "when strictly necessary and to the extent required for the performance of their duty".

Ms Chakrabarti said that she was "concerned" that British police had been trained by Israeli officers.

She also criticised the Association of Chief Police Officers' call for new legislation to deal with terrorists, including a demand for police to be allowed to detain suspected terrorists for up to three months. "We already have enough pre-emptive legislation to combat terrorism," she said.

"If there are gaps then the law should be changed by democratically elected politicians. But I cannot see any rationale for increasing police powers of detention to three months."

Scotland Yard declined to say last night whether the tactics for dealing with suspected suicide bombers would be reviewed. The Independent Police Complaints Commission will investigate the shooting, as it does all similar incidents as a matter of course.